NaVi Fantastic Debut At LEC

LEC Versus 2026 brought us many notable moments and discoveries. Not only were we able to see the experiment with invited ERL teams, but we also witnessed many interesting matches and the current form of the teams following the roster shuffle window. In this blog, we will talk about the team that surprised both its fans and opponents - Natus Vincere.

How Natus Vincere Joined the LEC

Natus Vincere is a legendary organization that fields teams in multiple disciplines, and its fans can be found worldwide. They previously had a League of Legends roster back in 2012, but they did not achieve significant success at that time. Therefore, it was not until 2025 that Natus Vincere managed to buy out a slot from Rogue, who had been trying to sell their place in the LEC for a long time.

Upon purchasing the spot from Rogue, Natus Vincere also acquired the contracts of several players, which were valid until the end of the season. They began their participation starting with LEC Summer 2025. The roster at that time looked like this:

• Adam - Top
• Thayger - Jungle
• Larssen - Mid
• Hans SamD - ADC
• Malrang - Support

For NAVI, this split went very poorly; they finished in 10th place and failed to win a single map. However, the organization did not prioritize this split. They clearly understood that the main transfer window would open after Worlds 2025, so they simply needed to wait and negotiate with organizations and players in advance to assemble a suitable roster. And that is exactly what happened.

Natus Vincere New Era LEC Versus 2026

Since the beginning of League of Legends Season 16, Natus Vincere announced a new roster, and this lineup looked promising on paper, but in reality, it turned out to be even better than anyone expected.

• Maynter - Top
• Rhilech - Jungle
• Poby - Mid
• SamD - Bot
• Parus - Support

Let's go through each of the players to get a clear picture of their level:

Maynter (Volodymyr Sorokin) Top - an experienced offlaner from Ukraine. For NAVI, this player is important not only for his personal gaming achievements but also for the fans, since Natus Vincere is a Ukrainian esports organization. It can be said that Maynter has fully conquered the tier-2 scene, winning all possible tournaments there. In 2025, he won the EMEA Masters and LFL (French league) tournaments with Karmine Corp Blue, after which he deservedly transitioned to the main European league, the LEC.

Rhilech (Enes Uçan) Jungle - a twenty-year-old jungler from Turkey. He became one of the organization's new signings for the 2026 season. When forming the new roster, the club's management bet on regional talents, and Rhilech got the opportunity to prove himself at the tier-1 level by controlling jungle resources and setting the team's pace in the early stages of the game.

Poby (Yun Sung-won) Mid - a South Korean mid-lane player. He started his path on the professional scene at the end of 2021 in the T1 Academy system. In 2025, he moved to the European region, where he played for Fnatic, which allowed him to qualify for the World Championship for the first time in his career. A mechanically strong and young player, he has unique experience at such a young age, and the main factor is that he substituted for Faker in T1 when his arm was injured. Such experience and his persistence make him one of the strongest midlaners in the LEC.

SamD (Lee Jae-hoon) Bot - a twenty-four-year-old South Korean marksman (AD Carry). This is the only player who has kept his place in the NAVI starting lineup since last year (from the moment the organization bought the LEC slot from Rogue in the summer of 2025). He possesses solid competitive experience, having also played for HLE in 2022, which is worth a lot, especially for the LEC region.

Parus (Polat Furkan Çiçek) Support - a Turkish support player. He attracted widespread attention due to his stable and successful performances for İstanbul Wildcats and Team BDS Academy. In 2025, he already managed to debut in the main LEC tournament for the Team BDS main roster.

TheRock7 - the team's head coach. He previously worked as a coach at Karmine Corp Blue, where he had already crossed paths and successfully collaborated with Maynter. His experience of winning tier-2 tournaments and his ability to build a workflow are now part of Natus Vincere.

Essentially, we see an almost complete roster of newcomers to the tier-1 scene, but they look individually very strong. There was a question of how they would be able to play together, since none of them had played with each other before, and moreover, there wasn't much time for practice to immediately perform on the tier-1 scene.

Natus Vincere And a Successful Performance at LEC Versus 2026

Despite having a rather interesting roster on paper, Natus Vincere were not the favorites of this tournament and played the role of an underdog. Before the tournament, the team openly stated that the winter split is an excellent platform for practice. They were not aiming for the win, but would try to go as far as possible to play as many games as they could.

LEC Versus 2026 started with the Regular Season, where 12 teams played against each other for four and a half weeks in a Bo1 format. Natus Vincere managed to finish this stage in second place. On one hand, this is a very good achievement for a newly formed team. On the other hand, everyone objectively understood that Bo1 series are always advantageous for underdog teams. However, it is very difficult to call qualifying for the playoffs from second place a fluke, given the level of play NAVI demonstrated.

Because NAVI took second place, they were able to choose their opponent from the lower seed, and their choice fell on Fnatic, to whom they suffered a bitter defeat in the regular season. For Natus Vincere, this was a great chance to test their strength and show how well they can play Bo3 matches. In this match, they closed out Fnatic without any problems with a score of 2:0, sending them down to the lower bracket.

Next was the match against Movistar KOI, and this opponent was significantly stronger. MKOI were one of the strongest teams in the region last year and have been playing with the same roster for quite a long time, so this experience was an incredible advantage for them. In a highly expected result, NAVI lost 0:2, dropping to the Lower Bracket Quarterfinals.

In the Lower Bracket Quarterfinals, they faced GIANTX. The team, which took 6th place in all splits last year, kept their roster, and this bore fruit. NAVI lost 1:2 in this matchup and were eliminated from the tournament, taking a top-6 finish at LEC Versus 2026.

Natus Vincere is a Promising Team

Taking sixth place at a tier-1 tournament against the strongest teams and players in the region is an excellent result for a newly formed squad, especially considering that some of the players and the coach had no prior tier-1 experience.

Every player and the coach understand their mistakes and see their weaknesses. At this tournament, they were the top-1 team in securing first objectives, including both towers and dragons. This demonstrates how well they can control the map. It is worth noting another of their strengths - their team fights. The team perfectly understands the power of their champions, maneuvers well during fights, and chooses advantageous positions and flanks for engagements. This makes them one of the strongest teams that will soon be able to compete for the title.

Natus Vincere needs more experience in long Bo3 and Bo5 series, needs to work on their drafts, and has to refine their playstyle. If they manage to correct these mistakes and showcase the results of their practice during the break between splits at the LEC Spring, where the regular season will be held in a Bo3 format, we will see new contenders for the championship title, and perhaps by summer, a qualification for Worlds 2026.